and above the human sweetness of the song Sylvia felt that there dwelt a deeper, higher meaning, but she could not attain to it now. Thought was pain. What she longed to do was to wipe the last week from her remembrance. The last week. She suddenly remembered its high light: the thrill with which she had worked over her pictures and the power she felt in her finger tips. Her sketches,—she had forgotten them. Her aunt, Edna, would find them. What matter? Nothing at Hawk Island mattered.
She turned her thought to the farm. The Basin was sparkling and waiting for her, the birches were bending forward in welcome. Thinkright, and the dear Fosters, she loved them all; and her boat, whose dainty oars she had never handled. Home, a dear home, awaited her. She hoped the uncontrollable fountain of her tears would dry before the Tide Mill should feel her presence and seem to say: "I told you so. Better never to believe in the sunshine. Then you cannot suffer a pang in finding that, after all, the world holds naught but bitterness and disappointment."
When the old mill finally came in sight, Sylvia averted her face. While the boat stole through its cold shadow she fixed her eyes on the smiling lake beyond, all alive in the rising tide, and glad, to its last sombre little evergreen pushing sap into the hopeful brightness of its tips.
"Thank you so much, Benny," she said, when finally she stood on the shore. "I've been a very stupid passenger, but I hope you'll forgive me."
"I didn't want to talk," returned Benny awkwardly. What he thought was, "I only wish't I was big enough to punch his head."
"I got time to carry your bag up to the house, and I'm goin' to," he added firmly.
Sylvia demurred, for she did not wish the boy to see the surprise her return would occasion; but he refused to listen to her assurances, and, dropping his anchor in the depths beside a certain rock, he strode off manfully by her side with the bag, only wishing that it were twice as heavy.
Fortune favored Sylvia, for Thinkright was the only member of the family who saw her emerge from the woods. He came down the hill to meet the newcomers, and, noting Benny's burden, understood that the girl's return was permanent.
He advanced in silence, smiling. Sylvia smiled too, bravely. "The bad penny, you see," she said, as he drew near.
"I'm glad to get the penny on any terms," he replied.